Armenia's Anti-Corruption Court will decide at its next hearing whether to terminate the criminal prosecution of Armen Gevorgyan, an opposition lawmaker from the Hayastan faction and former deputy prime minister, and Seyran Ohanyan, the faction's leader.

During the July 17 hearing, Judge Sargis Petrosyan said the arguments presented by the parties required additional examination.

"The decision will be made at the next court hearing," he said.

During more than two hours of arguments on the defense motion, lawyers cited precedents of Armenia's Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights. They also argued that Gevorgyan enjoys parliamentary immunity and is a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), whose rules, they said, protect him from criminal prosecution.

Gevorgyan, for his part, argued that the current criminal proceedings undermine the institution of parliamentary immunity.

"It is clear that if a member of parliament faces a new charge during the pretrial investigation, or if the charges are substantially amended, the consent of the National Assembly is required. The guarantee of immunity cannot disappear simply because the case has reached the trial stage," he said.

The next court hearing has been scheduled for September 18.

The case concerns the events of March 1, 2008. Armenia's second president Robert Kocharyan, former Deputy Prime Minister Armen Gevorgyan, former Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan, and former Chief of the General Staff Yuri Khachaturov were initially charged under Article 300.1 of the former Criminal Code, "Overthrow of the constitutional order." In 2021, Armenia's Constitutional Court declared that article unconstitutional, leading to the case's dismissal. Proceedings resumed in 2023 under a corresponding provision of the new Criminal Code with new charges.